Karl Radek,
the son of Jewish parents, was born in Lvov,
Galicia, in 1885. He joined the Social Democratic Party of Poland
in 1902 and worked closely with Rosa Luxemburg
and Leo Jogiches . The authorities soon
became aware of his political activities and he was forced into exile.
Radek lived
in Germany (1908-13) before working with Vladimir
Lenin in Switzerland. When Nicholas II
abdicated and a new Provisional Government
was established in March, 1917, Radek joined Lenin and 26 other Bolsheviks
in the sealed German train which took them to Russia.
After
the October Revolution Radek became
a member of the Bolshevik Central Committee.
He was initially a supporter of Leon Trotsky
and argued that the the Soviet government should help the spread of
world revolution.
Under
pressure from Vladimir Lenin, Radek ceased
to advocate world revolution but after the death of his leader, he
supported Leon Trotsky against Joseph
Stalin. In 1927 he was expelled from the party but after making
public statements admitting to his "political errors" he
was readmitted in 1929.
Radek
now became a loyal supporter of Joseph Stalin
but in 1937 he was arrested and put on trial for treason. Sentenced
to ten years imprisonment he was executed in 1939.
(1)
The Granat Encyclopaedia of the Russian Revolution was published
by the Soviet government in 1924. The encyclopaedia included a collection
of autobiographies including one by Karl Radek.
In 1905 the Russian Revolution broke out and I longed to go back to
Tsarist Poland for grass-roots Party work. I approached Rosa Luxemburg
with a proposal for a trip to Poland. The day arrived when I crossed
the frontier with a false passport, not knowing a word of Russian.
The first person I met was Felix Dzerzhinsky, the second Leon Jogiches.
I was immediately assigned to the editorial staff of the central Party
paper, participated in the publication of the first legal Party daily,
Trybuna, and threw myself into propaganda work among the Warsaw
working masses.
(2)
Karl Radek first met Vladimir Lenin and
Gregory Zinoviev in 1913.
We established unity on all basic points; disagreement came only over
the slogan for national self-determination. Daily contact with Lenin
and discussions with him finally convinced me that the Bolsheviks
were the only revolutionary party in Russia, and as early as the International
Conference of Women in April, 1915, I helped in the struggle against
Clara Zetkin's centerist policies.
(3)
Victor Serge , Memoirs of a Revolutionary
(1945)
Karl Radek
was a sparkling writer, with an equal flair for synthesis and for
sarcasm. Thin, rather small, nervous, full of anecdotes which often
had a savage side to them, realistic to the point of cruelty, he had
a beard growing in a fringe around his clean-shaven face, just like
an old-time pirate. His features were irregular, and thick tortoise-shell
spectacles ringed his myopic eyes. His walk, staccato gestures, prominent
lips, and crewed-up face.
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